Listen Emily, (and this goes out to all you other Jews on campus) I get your point. I have a Jewish mother, too. My rebuttal? Try having a Jewish mother to nag you and an Irish-Catholic family on your father's side, and see if you can get through the day without being broken into two pieces by overwhelming waves of guilt.
Fact: This article was late because I even felt guilty writing about my family. But now that I'm already doing it, let's get back to talking about my mom.
To her credit, she keeps me up to date. It's useful to know all the things that I could be doing with my life, or all of the things that all of my mom's friends' children are doing that I'm not. Otherwise I would clearly have no ideas of my own and no motivation even to get out of bed in the morning.
According to my mother, I should also be working on some kind of "project" constantly. My mom first started pushing this "life project" idea as a way for me to get into college. Once I put off working on any "projects" senior year and still got into college, my mom laid off this idea for awhile. That was until this summer, when she decided I should think up some sort of research project, make an outline and then get funding from the College. You know, just for fun, just if I had a free day kicking around or something.
Anytime I make a suggestion to my mom about her job such as 'please don't quit,' however, I really like having health insurance, she acts as though, clearly, I'm trying to kill her. And the only way she can respond to this death threat is by becoming hysterical. In essence, any suggestion of mine to her -- death, while my life -- project for her to do.
My mom also likes to comment on my appearance over the phone, wondering whether I've continued combing my hair or whether I have kept up with washing my face. She's "just checking," because otherwise basic hygiene is not something I'd think about doing on my own.
Also, this is really not a religion thing, but something that I think should be discussed. After all, I have an opportunity here to complain about my family, and I plan on taking full advantage of it. My mom joined Facebook this summer, and the only thing worse than the idea of future employers looking at my Facebook is the idea of my present parents doing the same. So my mom really focused her guilt-tripping this summer on the fact that I didn't want to be her friend on an online-networking site. "But my friend uses Facebook to keep track of her daughter in college," she says, which really made the point for me.
Now that I'm done listing all of the ways my mom has wronged me (JK, JK, Mom if you somehow find this article -- see you at home for Thanksgiving!), I have to mention that I have another side of my family, too. A Catholic side.
Most Catholic kids have all sorts of traumatic memories from Catholic school or intense feelings of guilt from talking to their priest or something. I don't really know, cause for the first time I have to say thank God for New York City public schools. At least none of my school assemblies involved a crucifixion.
So I'm not Catholic. But being the only family during Mass (and the only Jew-y looking family) that stays sitting when everyone else goes up to get communion isn't fun either.
But my Catholic family really had a way with guilt, though it involved less open hostility than my other side of the family.
My Catholic grandmother Rita was nice -- so nice that the guilt trips just sneaked up on me. They were so stealthy that I would start to feel guilty about being guilty because maybe this was all in my head, and she wasn't trying to insinuate anything at all.
My grandmother was nice enough to drive to Rhode Island once to pick me up from camp. And once she picked me up, she stopped me in the parking lot and gave me a cross and asked me to seriously consider letting Jesus Christ into my life.
She didn't want to pressure me to do anything, but I was 10 by then, and that is clearly the time to start considering things like who I believe my savior is and the way I think the world is constructed. Or maybe I should just start attending Mass with her when I'm visiting. She can even help me wake up on Sunday mornings, and I can wear that floral dress she bought me. That giant, white floral dress.
It's just a thought.
Eve is a staff writer for The Mirror. We pray for her salvation every day.
